


something I would never find in a lovelier place

by branwyn



Series: Perspectives On A Singular Theme [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Genderswap, girl!sherlock, mentor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:18:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/branwyn/pseuds/branwyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Lestrade knows something bad's already happened to Sherlock, but anything that happens to her now happens on his watch. Which means nothing else had better fucking happen to her, or he'll have someone's head off tonight."</p>
            </blockquote>





	something I would never find in a lovelier place

**Author's Note:**

> title from a poem by Anne Sexton

"Sherlock," says Lestrade, "you have got to move out of this flat, and out of this neighborhood."

"Why?" says Sherlock. "It suits me."

She is sitting at the table that dominates most of the space in the room, and her head is bent over a microscope ocular, dark hair hanging in ragged corkscrews down her back. Her foot taps the uncarpeted floor at a steady clip. Her face is white as chalk; there are half-moon bruises under eyes. She's not in good shape, and it's partly his fault. Lestrade winces every time he looks at her.

Still, she's better off like this, off the drugs, even if she won't do the thing properly and go to a clinic. He has to keep reminding himself, _this is better._

Sherlock's flat is a mad scientist's laboratory crammed into a one-room bedsit in an area of London Lestrade would never visit after dark in a marked car. Not for anything less important than this, anyway. The space in the room not taken up by the table is occupied by a sofa that's clearly been dragged up from a skip. Books are piled from floor to ceiling against the wall. The flat smells of chemicals he can't identify, cigarette smoke, a trace of weed. Lestrade glances around in what he hopes is a surreptitious manner, wondering if the weed is something he should mention--there are worse ways to help bring yourself down off coke, even if that's an opinion he can't have, in an official capacity.

"I wouldn't send a beat cop with 20 years experience down here," he says, squinting at the small refrigerator in the corner. There's a biohazard sticker on the door. Where the hell does she keep the food? "Not unless she had back-up."

"She." A familiar note of scorn in Sherlock's alto tones. "Rather specific of you."

"Or he," says Lestrade, knowing he's already shown his hand.

"No, no, it won't do. Only the male pronoun can be universal. No one ever uses the female pronoun imprecisely. I've told you before that I won't be bothered about things like that. Other people's irrationality does not concern me."

"You can't solve your own murder, you know, not when you're dead."

"As if I would want to," says Sherlock. "My own murder, when it occurs, will probably be fantastically dull. Motive too obvious--obsession or revenge. I shan't be sorry to miss out, I assure you."

Lestrade opens his mouth, something tight clenching in his chest. He turns away slightly and runs his hand over his face.

"Not me," Sherlock mutters.

"What?"

"The marijuana. You've smelled it, you have that face. Downstairs, comes through the air vent. Not me."

"Oh, of course." Lestrade's posture relaxes slightly. "Forgot you're above that sort of thing."

"Literally as well as figuratively, in this case." She shifts slightly on the stool. "I presume there's a reason you're here, though I'm at a loss what it might be, since you haven't brought me a case."

"Just wanted to see how you were. How the--you know. How it was going." _How you're coping with withdrawal,_ doesn't seem to be a sentence he can force past his lips.

"I fail to see why that would concern you. Unless you have a case for me."

"I'm--concerned, yeah," he says slowly. "I've a right to be concerned, I want to keep working with you. When you've got yourself sorted, that is. If there's anything I can do to help with that--"

"You aren't a medical professional nor have you any personal experience of narcotics addiction."

"No," _you stroppy cow,_ "but I know people like that. I could put you in touch. Or I could listen. You know, if you wanted to--talk."

"Talking," she says. "Not really my area."

"You could call me an idiot a few times, just to get warmed up. Never had any problem talking when you were doing that."

Sherlock snorts, which feels, inexplicably, like a victory.

"Well." Lestrade jams his hands into his pockets. "I'll be going, then. You could, er, call. If you needed something."

"All that I need," says Sherlock, "is work. Call _me_ when you have some."

*

Sherlock Holmes is trouble. Lestrade's known that from the start.

She's the sort of woman you expect to see on a crime scene, only as the victim, or the witness, not the investigator. She's gorgeous, brilliant, infuriating, and completely above it all. She gets under people's skins in all sorts of ways, gets into their heads and then _stays there._ You'd have no trouble, seeing how someone might kill for her. Hell, the first time Lestrade met her, he stood with his mouth open for five minutes, barely hearing a word she was saying. And then he _did_ hear what she was saying, and his jaw dropped completely.

He feels a bit guilty about that first part, now he knows Sherlock better. He's not quite sure how old she is. Twenty-five, maybe, not much more than a kid, however sharp she may be. He's seen her at her best and at her worst, and while he doesn't pretend that he knows her well, he thinks he may know her better than anyone else, which is--bloody sad, really. She doesn't seem to have any friends or boyfriends, or notice that those are things someone might expect her to have. She's an odd mix of childish and too old for her years, and Lestrade feels that there's something really quite innocent about her, despite the drugs and the frightening brilliance and the knack she has for making men trip over their own feet. Comes, he supposes, of shutting herself up in a little room her whole life, reading books and running chemistry experiments, instead of talking and flirting and hanging about with mates, like a normal kid.

He gets the sense she doesn't do any of it on purpose--alienating people, scaring them, making them want her despite all that (or because of it). She doesn't seem to want anything for herself, except stuff that will distract her from the hornet's nest she calls a brain. Apparently the only things that work for that are crime-solving and drugs, which makes it a shame, almost, that she can't have both, when she's got so little already.

Lestrade wonders if it's sexist of him to be puzzled how someone as beautiful as her ended up seemingly alone in the world. Not that you couldn't see how she might drive people away, but you'd think people would keep _trying._

Except, that's wrong too--people do try, and she brushes them off, or drives them away, which should explain everything. Only it doesn't, because she might be difficult, but she's still amazing, and it bothers Lestrade that people don't seem to see that. Not that he thinks of her that way, for himself. Five minutes after meeting her, yeah, but he was only human and a bloke at that. These days he just worries about her. Probably means he's getting old, looking at a girl like that and feeling fatherly instead of wondering how best to get off with her.

It had been hard for him, putting his foot down about the drugs. He had good reasons--he was on shaky procedural ground already, taking on a female civilian consultant who insists on putting herself in harm's way, without it getting around he was tolerating her showing up high for work. But he didn't do it for that so much as he did it because he's seen a lot of strung out people and he can tell when they're rounding the corner that leads to finding them facedown and cold in their flat. Sherlock could honestly care less if she ends up that way, he thinks, which is terrifying, so he'd used the only leverage he had to make her see reason.

It was necessary, but it's Lestrade's lot in life to feel guilty about it anyway, so now he's sniffing round her dodgy, horrible little flat every two or three days, because it's hard enough for people to kick a habit when they've got family and friends and doctors on their side, let alone when they're completely isolated and have just lost the only two things in the world that mean anything to them.

She's been clean for a week now. Give it another few days, and he'll start bringing her cold cases. Two weeks, three at the outside, and he'll let her come back to work.

He hopes she makes it that long. _Patient_ is right up there with _charming_ on the list of "adjectives least likely to be used when describing Sherlock Holmes."

What's on the "most likely" list he's not quite sure. But these days, for Lestrade, he thinks it might be _heartbreaking._

He'll never tell her that, of course. He's not stupid.

*

He feels bloody stupid.

"I don't _want_ you here," Sherlock hisses at him, pacing about the flat, gesticulating wildly with the hand that holds a half-burned cigarette. "I don't _care_ what you think, I don't _care_ if you think you're _concerned._ I don't even need you, you know, I have a website now, I can get work on my own."

"Yeah? And just how long d'you think you'll be fit for work, at the rate you're going?" Lestrade's standing with his back up against the door to the flat, arms limp at his side, a case file in his hand. The sight of Sherlock, flapping about, pupils blown and hands twitchy, makes him feel as weary as though he were the one going 90 kilometers an hour in his head. "When was the last time you ate? When was the last time you had any water? You race an engine like that, it cracks apart. You want to end up brain damaged, strapped to a bed in hospital, not knowing who you are or who the doctors are screwing or stealing from just by looking at them? Cause that's where you're headed, Sherlock, you're no different from anyone else that way."

"That," she says, in a low deadly voice, "will never happen. If that's why you're here, you may have my promise."

"Look at me." Lestrade takes half a step forward, struggling against the urge to cross the room and take hold of Sherlock and force her to be still. "You're better than this. You're better than this place and this mess you've got yourself into. Nobody, not even geniuses, can climb out of a hole all alone. I want to help you, why is that so hard for you to believe?"

Sherlock seizes an Erlenmeyer flask from the table and hurls it against the wall. It shatters, and a shard of glass strikes the side of her face. Lestrade watches, a cold lump in his stomach, as the scratch turns scarlet and a small trickle of blood appears against her pale skin. As though the small explosion has siphoned off some of her manic energy, she goes still for a long moment, facing away from him.

"Lestrade." Her voice is hoarse, tired. "Would you be here if I wasn't a woman?"

The question catches him like a blow to the gut, taking away his air. He blinks at the back of her head.

"I dunno," he says at last. "Would you?"

She turns, rather quickly, looking surprised. And then, incredibly, she smiles.

"Good question," she says. "Perhaps."

She takes two steps to the sofa and collapses backwards, dressing gown floating up around her as she falls. She tilts her chin back, exposing the long, pale column of her throat.

"Look," he says, when the silence becomes too much to bear. "I brought a cold case. If I leave it, do you think--will that help?"

She raises her head up an inch or so from the pillow wedged against the arm of the sofa. The gash along her cheek glares at him. "It may," she says. "It's more likely to than anything else."

Lestrade sighs. He shouldn't be doing this, he told himself he would stand firm, no cases at all while she was using. But it's obvious to him now that she's not going to make it without help, and this is the only help she'll take.

God help him, if she should ask for something that would actually be stupid or dangerous for him to give her. He'd probably do that too.

He walks over to the table and places the file on top of some stacked books, pausing to look down at Sherlock, whose eyes are closed. "If I bring you some food, will you eat it?"

"No."

"Sherlock--"

"Thank you for the file, Lestrade." She drapes an arm over her face. "The lock on my door is broken, be sure to put the bottles back before you go, they're my burglar alarm."

"What--" Lestrade whirls and looks at the door. "Why is--how--are you _asking_ to get yourself murdered?"

"No one is going to murder me in my flat. I have to hand numerous open containers of caustic chemicals that will halt the most determined attacker. But put the bottles in place, a few seconds' warning would be good."

She won't look at him, so there's no real point glaring. Lestrade does it anyway, for the relief of his feelings.

That evening he sends a couple of his guys around to put a new lock on Sherlock's door, calling in personal favors so he doesn't have to figure out how to justify it in the paperwork. He pays for the lock himself. Sherlock texts him a few hours later. _You shouldn't have. Really._

 _Anytime,_ he replies, thinking his life would be easier if he didn't mean it.

*

 _Solved it,_ she texts him, two days later. _Father did the murder, nanny knew. Drag pond for girl's bicycle._

 _Took longer than I expected,_ he texts back, because there's no point expressing gratitude to Sherlock, she couldn't care less, which is probably why he spends so much time torn up about her. She solves his cases for free, and apart from the lock for her door, the most significant thing he's ever given back to her is a cup of coffee.

 _It was tediously simple,_ she replies. _Too boring to think about for very long at once._

Lestrade tries to decide if this is a positive sign or not. He thinks it could mean anything. Not enough data, as Sherlock would say.

He'll wait another day or so before going round to her flat with a new file, just in case.

*

The next night, his phone rings while he's at home, sacked out in his armchair with the television still going. The ringtone jerks him back into wakefulness, and he begins fumbling for it before he's fully awake. When his hand closes on the phone, he tries to blink the bleariness out of his eyes so he can read the caller ID. It takes a few tries before he can focus enough to see that it's Sherlock's name on the screen.

He checks the time. It's well after one in the morning. God knows Sherlock's texted him at every obscene hour of the night, but she's never phoned this late. In fact, she hardly ever phones at all. Lestrade's heart begins to beat a little faster as he slides the button to answer.

"Sherlock," he says. "What is it?"

There's no reply. Lestrade hears what sounds like a ragged breath on the other end of the line. He sits up straight in the chair, alarm prickling along his spine.

"Are you there? Can you talk?" As soon as the words are out of his mouth his mind starts conjuring images of Sherlock in the grip of an overdose, unable to speak or work the phone properly. He reaches into his pocket for his work mobile, trying to remember the number of her flat so he can send paramedics to Montague Street.

"I--" A tiny sound, that one word, but it makes him pause in the middle of dialing on the other phone. Sherlock inhales, and the air seems to catch in her throat. Lestrade feels cold, suddenly, because if it were anyone other than Sherlock, he would swear she was crying.

Sod that. She _is_ crying.

"What's wrong?" he says, on his feet now. "Sherlock, tell me."

"I'm." Another breath. "Hurt. I don't--I don't know--"

"Where are you? What's happened?"

"You can't tell anyone," she says, and yes, she's definitely crying, but her voice is a little stronger now. There's a jagged, warning edge to her tone. "Don't--call it in, no ambulance." Then, in a softer voice: "Please."

Lestrade sits down and begins cramming his feet into his shoes. He glances around, locating his keys and wallet on the sideboard, his coat on the table. He can be out of here in less than a minute, if she will just _tell him where to go._ "I'll come alone, just give me an address."

The address she gives him is in a part of London that makes him regret promising not to call this in. Not so much because Lestrade wouldn't mind some back-up, depending on what sort of mess he's about to walk into, but because he's going to have to hang up the phone to get to Sherlock, and anything could happen to her in half an hour in a place like that.

"Look, I'm on my way," he says, "but don't be stupid, if you're in immediate danger call 999."

"I'm not," she says, and her voice suddenly sounds like it belongs to a woman 20 years older. "It's all over with, now." She hangs up.

*

Work has been eating every spare second of his life lately, so Lestrade hadn't planned on much more than a nap before he had to go back into work. He'd taken a car to his flat., figuring it could be spared that long, which is a stroke of luck, because if he'd had to try finding a cab at this hour in order to reach Sherlock, he'd have gone completely mental.

He drives with lights but no sirens as fast as he can go without being utterly reckless. It only takes twenty minutes, but they're easily the longest twenty minutes of his life because the whole way there, he hears Sherlock's voice saying _hurt_ , with that broken little hitch under the H. In the two years they've known each other, this is the first time she's ever asked anything of him. Even getting her coffee had been his idea. He knows something bad's already happened to her, and frankly he doesn't even want to think yet about what could be bad enough to make _Sherlock Holmes_ call him, literally _crying_ for help, but anything that happens to her now happens on his watch. Which means nothing else had better fucking happen to her, or he'll have someone's head off tonight.

He double-parks the car when he reaches the building and pauses for a moment, a sick feeling in his stomach. He knows this house. He'd raided it twice when he was a constable. The possible array of nightmare scenarios has just doubled, and it takes an act of will to make himself push open the front door of the flophouse and mount the creaking stairs. He has to step over more than one unconscious junkie to do it.

He doesn't know where Sherlock is but instinct tells him that she would choose the high ground, so he goes to the third floor. There are only three rooms. He pushes each door open, shining his torch ahead of him.

He finds Sherlock in the third room, sitting under a window, hugging her knees to her chest. The yellow light of a street lantern shines through the window, illuminating her profile. She jerks when he steps through the door.

"It's me," he says quickly. "Just me, you're all right."

Lestrade crosses the room and kneels beside her. She's still tense, rigid really. He can't see her well enough in this light to know what's wrong with her, though he can guess at part of it. He waits for her to tell him, to say anything at all. He hasn't got any words of his own yet.

"You came," she whispers finally. "That's good. Good of you."

"Anytime," he says. "Can you walk?"

*

When they reach the sidewalk outside, Sherlock shudders with her whole body and stumbles sideways, out from underneath his arm. She straightens up and faces him under the light of the street lantern. Her left eye is swollen and purple, and there are cuts on her forehead and lip that are crusted with blood. With her good hand, the one not attached to an obviously sprained wrist, she's clutching the edges of her blouse together. Several buttons are missing, and the rest show signs of being hastily re-buttoned.

All the clues add up to one sickening conclusion, and he thinks, _Christ, no._

"You have a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in your left-hand coat pocket," says Sherlock, in a hoarse but unnaturally steady voice. "May I have one?"

Grateful for something to do with his hands, for something to look at, he digs the pack out of his pocket and holds a cigarette out to her. She puts it in her mouth, takes his lighter, flicks and inhales. She gives the lighter back then turns away from him, leaning against the lantern post.

"Is there a particular hospital you want, or will the closest do?" he says, after she's puffed at her smoke for a minute or so.

"I'm not _going_ to hospital," she snaps. "Do keep up, Lestrade. Obviously if I had any intention of doing so I would simply have called 999."

"So you called me instead, because I'm what, then, your cabbie?"

"I called you because it was the only way I could get out of the house." There's a ragged edge to her tone now. "I couldn't think clearly, I couldn't deduce whether or not he was likely to still be near, and I was--I was afraid to go out alone."

It just about undoes him entirely. Sherlock Holmes just admitted to being frightened, just told Lestrade that he makes her feel safe, and now all he wants to do is throw his coat around her and bundle her into the car then turn around and burn this fucking shitpile of a house to the ground.

"Tell me about the man, then," he says. Surely this is the one thing about tonight that will come out--not _right_ , but _less wrong_ , because whoever this wanker is, he's gone and messed with the wrong girl. Sherlock is going to serve his arse up on a platter, and after that it will belong to Lestrade.

"I--" She falters. "I don't know."

Lestrade stares at her, incredulous. "Of course you do, you must."

"You don't understand." She takes a deep breath, and starts talking fast. "Yes, I noticed--details. He's white, between forty and forty-three, 185 pounds. Strong build, musculature in his biceps indicates lifetime of manual labor, but he's been unemployed at least eight months, homeless at least six. Arsenal tattoo on his left hip, obtained in prison about ten years ago, probably Clerkwell judging by the ink. He served at least three years on a drugs charge. From Manchester originally, but he's lived in London since he was eighteen. He smelt of lye. He was uncircumcised. I couldn't pick him out of an identity parade to save my life."

Lestrade's hands are already fists, and they can't get much tighter, so he bites down hard on the inside of his mouth.

"I took too much, you see." She laughs. "Not on purpose, not enough for total unconsciousness, but it made me sick. I couldn't stand up, couldn't run, couldn't think. He saw me come in, gave me enough time to take the hit, then followed me. He probably didn't think he was doing anything particularly objectionable. I was in no state to voice a protest." She puts the cigarette to her lips with a trembling hand. "He wasn't sadistic, he didn't hit me until I began fighting him. It was useless, I shouldn't have bothered, it only made him hurt me when otherwise he might not have done."

She looks so miserably uncertain and doubtful that Lestrade feels oddly breathless. "Of course you fucking fought him," he says. "You know you'll have to go to hospital if we're to have a chance of an arrest leading to a conviction."

"No."

All at once, he is entirely out of patience.

"Listen to me!" Lestrade takes two quick strides forward and leans down, into her face. Sherlock draws a harsh breath. "You brought me into this, and now I'm here I'm not turning my back. I'll not see you go back to your flat and try to act like nothing's happened, because if you do that it'll be the end of you. You try going it alone with this miserable shite weighing you down on top of everything else, and you'll be dead in a month."

"And that matters so very much, does it?" she says, petulant.

Lestrade studies her expression for a few seconds, then makes a decision. He puts his hands on her shoulders, holding her at arm's length.

"Everyone's told you your whole life that you're brilliant," he says. "But obviously no one ever bothered telling you that you belong here. Right here, with the rest of us humans, even if we are all idiots compared to you. Tell me you understand that, Sherlock, or I swear to Christ you're going to make an old detective sergeant cry. After everything we've been through, you could spare me that, at least."

She's shaking now, and her eyes bright under the lamplight. He keeps holding onto her as the silence stretches out, as though there are other hands clutching at her, trying to tear her away.

"Say it," he says. "Say you understand."

Sherlock takes a deep breath and shakes her head.

"I don't understand. But I trust you." She shuts her eyes for a moment. "There's no need for hospital. You can take me to my brother's house. I'll tell you how to get there."

*

Sherlock is silent during the car ride, except when she gives him directions. Lestrade is resigned and unsurprised when the directions take him into a part of London so posh he couldn't afford a kip on a park bench.

"Thought you came from money," he says. "Your trust fund get cut off?"

"I don't touch it unless I have to," she says, a hint of her old sulkiness in her voice. "I never wanted their help."

Lestrade feels suddenly uneasy. It occurs to him that Sherlock never talks about her family or her childhood, and people who end up like she has more often than not keep their distance from their families for good reasons.

"What sort of bloke is he, your brother?" He hopes to God she's not about to tell him something that will force him to turn the car around, because he doesn't know what the fuck he's going to do with her if this doesn't work out. "Why don't you get on?"

"Because he's a pompous, interfering prat and he's too clever by half."

Lestrade can't help himself. He bursts into laughter.

"Sorry," he says, seeing her look white and furious in the rearview. "Just--that last bit, that's saying something coming from you."

"Mycroft is cleverer than I am. He's also taller, older, and a man. In short, people fall over themselves to give him what he wants. It was never like that, for me."

"No, I suppose it wasn't." Lestrade takes a left turn onto a row of townhouses. "What's he say about you?"

"That I got the looks and the artistic talent and I was Mummy's favorite. As though that made any difference, she died when I was six." She sniffs. "Turn right. Third house on the row. Park anywhere."

*

Lestrade knocks on the door of the house Sherlock has brought them to, and tries not to betray his awareness of the three separate security cameras he's spotted just walking up the path. He waits with his hands in his pockets, wondering if he should produce his warrant card.

The door opens half a minute later, to reveal a man who looks absolutely nothing like Lestrade is expecting. Despite the hour--and it must be getting on for three in the morning by now--he's wearing a waistcoat and shirtsleeves, and he has the air of having been called away from a desk.

"May I help you?" he says, in civil tones that betray not the slightest unease or caution at finding a strange man on his doorstep in the wee hours of the morning. "Detective Sergeant," he adds, after another second or two of observation.

"Mr Holmes," he says. "I've brought someone to see you."

The man arches his eyebrow in a pitch-perfect imitation of polite curiosity. And then Lestrade steps aside, revealing Sherlock, standing on the step below him.

"Mycroft," she mutters.

The smug smile melts from Mycroft Holmes' face. His eyes widen. He opens his mouth, and it stays open. He stops breathing.

"Sherlock," he whispers.

Lestrade feels a profound weight lift from his shoulders. He's seen that look before, on the faces of family members he's reunited with lost loved ones. In a single unguarded moment, Lestrade's learned everything he needs to know about Mycroft Holmes' feelings for his sister.

He moves aside as Mycroft walks past him, down the front steps, to where Sherlock waits, immobile. Mycroft stands there, studying her, arms limp at his sides, and Lestrade can't imagine what it must feel like to be able to simply _look_ at your baby sister and _know_ everything that's happened to her, the way Mycroft so clearly does, judging from the way his right hand suddenly becomes a fist.

Neither of them speak, and Lestrade is on the verge of excusing himself, when Mycroft lifts a hand to Sherlock's face and brushes a strand of hair from her eyes.

"Please come in," he says. "Both of you. Please." He sounds strange, repeating himself, as though he's never done it before and doesn't quite know why he's doing it now.

They both wait for Sherlock to take the first step.

*

Once inside, Mycroft indicates a parlor, and suggests to Lestrade that it will be a comfortable place to wait while he and Sherlock speak privately. Lestrade does as he's told, and turns for a look around the room. He stops, startled, when he spots a life-sized painting of Sherlock, dressed in some kind of robe and holding a piece of unidentifiable fruit. Lestrade gazes at it for a second, then shakes his head. He's more tired than he thought. It's not Sherlock, obviously, but the resemblance is much too close for its presence in Mycroft's home to be any kind of coincidence.

Mycroft enters the parlor about five minutes later. He doesn't shut the door behind him. He walks up to Lestrade, and offers his hand.

"It would seem, Detective Sergeant, that I owe you an unrecoverable debt," he says.

Lestrade considers this for a moment, then accepts the handshake.

"You don't owe me anything," he says, releasing him. "I only brought Sherlock here because this is where she wanted to go."

Mycroft stares at him, then turns abruptly, but not before Lestrade sees his mouth twist, sees him cover it with his hand.

"Nonetheless," says Mycroft, recovering himself after a moment, "if there had been no one in her life whom she trusted, she would never have turned to a stranger for help. She would have been quite alone. I owe you my gratitude for having proven yourself to her."

"Well," says Lestrade, starting to feel uncomfortably warm. "I'm--you know, very fond."

He can see Mycroft taking this statement apart, measuring the implications. "Sherlock tells me she first met you two years ago."

"Yeah, about that long."

"I have not seen her for more than five." A ghastly smile flickers over his face.

"You know what happened tonight, I take it."

"Yes." His expression is closed, his features set. "You needn't concern yourself in the investigation. It will be--redressed through other channels."

 _He's in government,_ Sherlock had told him on the ride over. _High in government, but you'll never read his name in a newspaper._ Under any other circumstances, Lestrade would be furious at this sort of high-handedness, but assuming he ever found the man, he can all too easily imagine the trial, the ordeal of Sherlock's testimony.

"Just don't leave the body on my turf," he says. "Got enough cold cases on my hands as it is."

Mycroft's eyes widen very slightly, as though Lestrade has surprised him. "Nothing so uncivilized," he murmurs, and there's a hint of a smile there.

"You'll help her get clean," says Lestrade.

"Everything she requires, she shall have."

"She matters to us. We owe her. I owe her."

Mycroft lifts his chin, and for the first time Lestrade sees a hint of Sherlock in him. "I am gratified that you are sensible of it."

Lestrade takes a long look over his shoulder as he walks back to his car, and wonders if he'll ever see Sherlock again. He tries to be satisfied that if he doesn't, he's done what he can.

He's not sure what it says about him that he'd like to do still more.

*

It's spring, April, about 9 in the morning, when Lestrade unlocks his office door to find Sherlock sitting behind his desk, leafing through the files he'd left stacked there the night before.

He freezes when he sees, both shocked and completely unsurprised. Their gazes lock for a long moment, and he takes in the glinting eyes in the otherwise expressionless face, the faint hint of bloom across her cheeks. There's a small scar just beneath her lower lip, but she looks good. Healthy. Wonderful, really.

Lestrade blinks once, hard, then slams his door. "How many times have I told you, you do not pick my bloody lock."

"You can always get a new one, Detective Inspector." Just the faintest emphasis on his new title, and for half a second he could swear that the look she gives him is almost proud. She glances back down at the file in her hand, but there's a hint of smile in the curve of her mouth. "I understand you know where to obtain them."

"Give me that." He snatches the folder from her hand. "I need you in Lambeth in half an hour, can you come?"

"Certainly."

"Good. Thanks."

"You are quite welcome," she says, but she flicks her eyes up at him through her dark hair, and even if Lestrade's not the heavyweight IQ in the room, he can still see that her face is a mirror in which the thanks and the welcome are reversed.

When they walk out the door together, his hand hovers just behind her back, not quite touching, because she doesn't need the support anymore, only the guidance.


End file.
